Sweet Misery
by Shade Embry
Summary: Pre-Season 3. They had answered the call that was in their souls, but that didn't mean their souls were ready for the call.


Sweet Misery

Summary: Pre-Season 3. They had answered the call that was in their souls, but that didn't mean their souls were ready for the call. (Jack/Liz relationship piece, dealing with Mason/Liz, Tony/Liz and Jack/Kate aftermath – although NOT implying a Jack/Kate relationship.)

Spoilers: To be safe, the entirety of Season 2, and yes, my favorite, more references to Teri Bauer.

Standard disclaimers apply.

Original Character Bio: Liz Rycoff was CTU Los Angeles's Chief of Technology. She survived the first day and remained with CTU. She's best friends with Jack, but he shut even her out of his life following the events of the first day. Her other close friend is Mason, but obviously now he's no longer with us. Liz and Tony sort of, kind of dated between Seasons 1 and 2, but it's a failed relationship, and was from the start. Following Mason's death, he named Liz his successor, and she now inhabits his job while Jack is leading his own CTU field-ops unit.

Dedication: Kiefer Sutherland is Jack Bauer, point blank. So, this one's another one for him. And to the people who needled me to put Liz and Jack back together. I'm only sticking with it if my readers approve, but you had your one shot.

Recommended Listening: "Seasons of Love" by Mad at the World

Twenty-odd minutes in silence, just being there together, heading toward twenty-one, and they were still drifting. It had taken them this long to get their heartbeats back in time and the sound of that simultaneous metronome was the only thing there, almost like a whole other third person in the non-conversation, pressing against their chestplates, their hearts, and their minds. She could still feel the dull pain at the back of her head from the moment when he had not been there to catch her. He could still feel the momentary twinge in his blood from the hour when he had lost her in his thoughts. It was safe to say they had both failed each other, somehow, and maybe that was why they never spoke, because apologies were lost on their lips.

Still grasping her hand firmly, he turned over onto his side. "What is it with women at CTU and Tony Almeida?" he asked, watching her reaction, being one of the women at CTU.

"I don't know," she said, the effect of the shrug useless since she was on the floor of his living room at the time.

His lips quirked, something she found she sorely missed. "There was you and Michelle and even…" He couldn't say the other name, not even now, and she squeezed his hand to let him know she understood. It was a word, a proper noun to be exact, they'd never utter again, or they would try not to.

"He makes himself indispensible to those who need him," she said after a moment. "And we each happened to."

"That's it?" he said, skeptical.

She let out a short chuckle. "Past, present, future."

Now he quirked an eyebrow.

She elaborated. "She was his past … she got the better of him for a selfish purpose of her own. I was his present … we both needed each other because we'd both been burned, and we were both healing. Now that we're healed, he can move on … Michelle, she's his future."

"And what about yours?"

"What about my what?"

He laughed out loud at how she could sometimes be totally ignorant. "Your future, Liz."

"Jack…" she trailed off. "You know I don't like to think about it."

There was an uneasy pause. They'd both been down hard roads, but from his perspective, her world especially had been rocked. He had shut her out, walked away from her despite the fact that he knew quite well he had a place of extreme importance in her world. The only other man to hold such a position was now deceased for almost a year, having executed an about-face and gone down an unlikely hero. The fact that Jack and he had been together in the last moments was something she would have sacrificed her soul to see, and it was the only glimmer of hope in losing both the men in her life. He was trying to make that up to her now, trying to come back to her, for whatever that was worth.

"What about the job?" he said, his voice soft.

She closed her eyes for a moment. "It's still George's office. His position. His … life."

"Why'd you take it, then?" 

"For us." When her eyes opened they were full of disappointment, wasted chances. "To protect us."

She had done what Mason had always taught her to do: look at the whole board and make the best move. He had offered her a parting opportunity: chief of staff to Tony, or Mason's own title and role. Though she was unqualified politically to assume his former job as District Director overseeing CTU Los Angeles, it was her best option. Moving to do so shielded Tony, Michelle and CTU from Ryan Chappelle or anyone else who might seize upon the chance to exploit them, and also gave them an insider at Division who could provide valuable support when it really mattered. Like when your agent was out in the field with a CTU team at a DOD facility and the only answer was "Nobody asked him to go out there." 

Sensing the irregularity in her breathing that always seemed to happen when somebody mentioned Mason's name, Jack put his hand on Liz's shoulder, watched her gaze flick to it, as if she were trying to hope that he wouldn't just as quickly walk out on her again. She would never tell him, but he had hurt her deeply, so deeply that her normal rage had been replaced by simple mortification Tony had been able to see. If not for Tony, God knew where she might be.

"He'd be proud of you," Jack said.

"Would he?"

"Yeah." He nodded confidently.

"I would hope so."

"I know so," he corrected, then hesitated. "I think he always was."

Now she was watching him, almost surprised.

"You were there when no one else was," Jack reminded her. "Through everything. And…"

His breath caught.

"And what, Jack?"

"I think he was in love with you, Liz."

Now she was sitting up and staring at him with wild eyes. "George?" she said as if they were speaking of two different people. "What do you know?" Liz's voice was almost pleading. On one hand she was daring him to supercede her; she knew more of George Mason than he ever would, and was almost afraid to be proved wrong. Yet she also knew he'd been with Mason in his last moments, and though he'd told her all of what Mason had said to him, somehow still believed that maybe there was more, something she was missing, failing to grasp. He saw that in her eyes and it pained him. He had hated Mason at moments, but he would do anything to give that man back to Liz now.

"He told me in the plane to look out for his son, and to look out for you," he repeated the same information. "But the way he looked at you, Liz, was different from the way he looked at anyone else. It was the way I used to look at Teri, when I knew I didn't know who I was, but I knew that she did."

Liz was silent for a moment, knowing that the memory of his late wife was still a bitter one to bear. Before Jack could say anything more, she'd bolted toward the window, shaking her head at the disbelief inherent in every step they were making, as if every moment in the last two and a half years was a dream from which one could be awakened. Jack knew better, and he got up and followed her, watching her stand there, chin tucked into chest and arms wrapped as she felt something cave. Tony had told her, almost a year ago, that she had never taken time for herself, and now she was wondering if she had missed something, or worse, something in herself Mason had seen that she had not. Liz bore that cross of personal responsibility, and he knew now that he was a fool for ever losing her.

He put his hands on her shoulders, and she turned and looked into his eyes. Framed by the moonlight, they could see each other for what they really were: two people who knew nothing except that they could trust each other, or desperately wanted to, lest they be lost.

*Sometimes love is all we need

It takes an empty day and makes it go away

And happiness is falling down from the sky

But sometimes when love ends it takes your happiness

And traps it in a sieve where only dead men dwell

But don't believe that so it has to be, it's a lie*

"Liz," he said quietly, "I didn't want to put anything on you…"

"Don't, Jack," she interrupted. "We'll never know, I shouldn't think about it…"

"But you will." He never took his eyes off her. "Because you do."

"Not about that."

"No, but everything else." Here he allowed himself the barest hint of a smile. "You overthink, Elisabeth."

He only called her by her full first name in rare circumstances. It was another of his differences from Mason: George preferred to call her Elisabeth, while everyone else called her Liz. Jack's invocation of her entire moniker now was intentional, meant with the respect with which Mason had always wielded it. She nodded almost imperceptibly to show him that she understood, even if she didn't understand anything else. But she wasn't about to be dissuaded. "Life's given me a lot to think about."

"It has for all of us."

"Yeah, well, Jack," she shot back, "you weren't facing it alone." And she turned and tore away from him, and the only thought in Jack Bauer's head was that he couldn't possibly allow this to happen to him again, if he had any sense left.

  
*These are the seasons of love

They leave you cold and dry 

The day you say goodbye

And then love feels like a fairy tale

Another rusted coin in a wishing well*

"No, I wasn't," he said, staring at the back of her head. "Tony told me what happened to you. That you collapsed. Twice."

She stiffened, still refusing to turn around. "So what if I did?"

"He said that you said my name before you went down the second time." Jack was ready to deal with everything now. Maybe he hadn't been then, but he'd never been a man to run from anything for long, and they both knew it. "If you want to blame me, Liz, blame me. You wouldn't be the first, or the last."

It had been almost a year but she still felt the urge to make an excuse forming in her brain. She'd made excuses for him since he'd shut her out, even while she'd been with Tony. The Jack she knew wouldn't just leave; there had to be a reason why. Eventually she'd made peace with the fact of his disappearance, especially when Tony had held the mirror up. Finally, she turned around, even as he fixed her with another probing gaze that seemed to touch her core.

"I don't blame you anymore, Jack, if I ever did." Her eyes never left his. "Tony told me something too. He told me that I spent too much time worrying about everyone else and I'd forgotten about myself. I feel now like you felt two and a half years ago … that the wall is coming down … and I can't blame you if I'm in the same place you used to be."

Jack knew the feeling but was thrown off balance nonetheless. Liz was never one to admit weakness, simply to work past it. When she was moved to emotion it was a major event, and this same life choice had brought him to tears in the St. Mark's ER. It was the feeling of someone who lived to risk everything only to realize that was an impossible dare because they were more connected to people than they thought they were. They were no longer able to make their own choices. Now there were responsibilities and limitations against which their very nature struggled. Mason had asked him point blank if he had a death wish, and maybe part of him did, then, but he knew better now. It was a wish to mean something, without ever thinking of the cost.

  
He took a couple cautious steps toward her, not wanting to push her. "Liz, it'll be okay," he insisted. "I promise you that. After tonight it'll be better than this."

And when he tried to guide her gently back toward the window and the stars blanketing the sky, she let him lead her for the first time in two and a half years.

*But deep in the seasons of love

There is a reason why

You'll see it if you try

The voice inside of the wind

Is telling you that love can see you through

Again, and again*

Together they sat perched on the windowsill, their backs to the glass, in a mutual recovery. Jack Bauer had been the catalyst for so much that had happened two and a half years ago. And in her own way, eighteen months after when he'd drowned himself in himself, Liz Rycoff had stepped up and taken on his role. It was a role that came with a very high price indeed: broken relationships and twisted beliefs, over which one mulled in the middle of the night, wondering how it ever got this far.

"What happened with you and Tony?" he asked her.

  
She glanced over at him. "He didn't tell you? I didn't tell you?" she replied, knowing that both she and Tony had been up front about their one-time involvement, or lack thereof as it were – they'd never officially been involved with each other, and therefore couldn't officially separate, though they'd done just that some time ago. But Jack didn't want repeated phrases that she and Tony had come to use. He wanted to know what was in her mind that had driven her into someone else's heart – someone that wasn't him – and torn her back out again.

He shook his head, prompting her with, "You haven't told me much."

Liz chuckled, but her tone was serious. "We just realized that we were two of the only people who were still standing in the building who knew the hell we'd been through. We were both still dealing … he was dealing with her and I was dealing with Teri … and neither of us wanted to be alone anymore." She swallowed. "You know the feeling."

"Yeah." Jack didn't seem thrilled about it either, and found himself staring down at his hands momentarily. "You know there hasn't been anybody since Teri died … Kate Warner was there but I never felt anything. I stopped feeling anything. I don't need someone who looks up to me, someone who needs me to save them or wants to deify me, Liz, I never needed that. I need somebody who's an equal and I haven't felt that in so long. That's the feeling."

She nodded. "We've both been there, Jack … what did we expect?"

He lifted his gaze. "Something more than this."

*I recall how I felt inside 

A sea of loneliness became the tears I cried

I was freezing from the wind and snow and the rain  
But still I'm gonna have the faith that someday

When the storm is passed

I'm gonna find that truth of a love that lasts

Then tomorrow will be worth the price of today*

Tony had made the point for both of them with his renewed assertiveness: they were both still living in the past, both their worlds spinning on an axis from two and a half years before. Not a day went by, not an action was considered without the memory of betrayals and the death of a beloved one. Except the world didn't stop moving, things kept turning, and they needed to push past their fears of what had happened in two horrible days and move forward. Tony himself was doing a fine job of that, still running CTU with a solid hand and in a happy relationship with Michelle Dessler, but Jack and Liz had some work to do.

They'd said it time and time again, that they'd give everything to turn back time and go back to that first fateful day, pretend it never happened. That, inwardly, they'd come to realize, was a lie. Yes, Teri Bauer, Richard Walsh, Jamey Farrell, other innocents might still be alive. Yet they would never know the truth about Nina Myers. George Mason would never get his wake-up call, nor his chance at redemption. The secrets and lies would still be holding them hostage. And they might think they could live with that, but they would have to face it someday, and who was to say that someday wouldn't be as horrifying, if not worse, than the days they'd already survived? 

*These are the seasons of love

They leave you cold and dry 

The day you say goodbye

And then love feels like a fairy tale

Another rusted coin in a wishing well*

They examined each other, holding on to each other as they had since they'd first met years ago and sealed a mutual fate. Whatever happened to them now, it would be together or not at all. "You still think about it," Jack told Liz needlessly, "You have to think about it."

Because through everything, they'd laid down some part of themselves. Both of them had been incapable of filling in the gaps that those two days had blown in their lives. From Liz's failed non-relationship with Tony to Jack's lack of interest in Kate Warner, something was missing. They couldn't feel like other people anymore. There were two categories now: those that had lived through the hell of those two days, and those that hadn't, and anyone that hadn't just would never understand. Somehow they had gotten understanding mixed up with acceptance, and even when human emotion was in front of them, couldn't bring themselves to feel what they should be feeling anymore. It wasn't that they didn't want to be loved, it was that they had forgotten how.

Liz got to her feet and leaned against the frame of the door, letting out a long, pent-up breath. "I think about it now," she told Jack. "I didn't use to think about it before."

There was fear in them both. Fear that any other person they dared to love would come to harm, that it was simply not safe to let their guard down. After all, Jack had failed Teri, and Liz had failed Mason. How dare they ask someone to give up their lives in a relationship of any sort when it was likely to end in death or ambiguities and pain worse than that? They simply didn't feel as if they had the right to be that kind of content ever again, never mind that their souls were screaming for the feeling.

They looked at each other, into each other, the permanence of their unity in the face of it all, and they saw the truth for what it was in that split instant.

*But the change is yet to come

And the song's yet to be sung

Though I might not understand

I believe there is a plan

Open up my eyes and show me the way*

Jack walked over toward Liz, studying the apathy that had settled over her. It wasn't something he liked to see in her. The woman he'd known was the one who'd punched a hole in his office locker, when the cube at CTU had still been his office. This Elisabeth was simply still breathing, searching for a good reason to muster up any sense of life at all. And truth be told, he was the same way. 

They had always been together in everything since they'd been randomly assigned to each other. Liz had been a large part of the salvation of Jack's marriage, and had a good relationship with his daughter Kim – even when she'd shut Jack out, she'd still spare a few words for Liz, most of them about her fears for her father. They'd worked together shoulder to shoulder in the best and worst of times. She had been his ASAC on the Hotel Los Angeles attack, and when she'd been stunned into next Tuesday, he'd been there to hold her in his arms and insist that they were going to take care of the bastards who'd caused that sensation. Despite the fact that George Mason had come into her life and been an equally strong force, she'd retained her loyalty to Jack, over Mason's pleas and the wrath of God. That had to mean something. It had to be worth something, those years, because they really did care about each other, even if they knew what the future held.

If he wanted to do anything ever again, if she did, they had to go forward. And Jack, despite how little else he was sure of, knew she'd admitted she couldn't go on without him, and that he didn't want to go on without her. Maybe that was the point of it all, this brooding in the night while they had the moments to take, to remind them that they couldn't live without each other. Maybe that was the missing piece they'd both said they didn't have, if only because they'd lost each other. That ever so painful reminder that dug into his heart as they silently communicated with each other told him that he'd come to care for this woman beyond the usefulness of words, and that it was time to start proving that, as they went on with whatever they were trying to prove to the world.

*Straight through the seasons of love

There is a reason why

You'll see it if you try

The voice inside of the wind

Is telling you that love can see you through

Again, and again*

"What are you thinking?" he asked her, his breath warm against her.

"I don't know," she confessed, then paused as she stared at the floor before meeting his gaze again. "That I don't want you to ever leave me again, Jack."

"I promise you I won't. I swear to God, Liz, I'll stay this time."

She blinked water back from her eyes. "This is it, then," she said, voice soft.

"Yeah," he said, "this is what it comes to."

"All these years, all this time, and it's still the same thing," she replied, almost amused by it. "What are the chances?"

Jack allowed himself to share the feeling. "I have no idea."

"I don't either," she said, and honestly, openly smiled for the first time in a long while, as if he'd been able to take a weight off her shoulders. With that, he felt his being lifted, and maybe things got brighter. "But I don't care."

He chuckled. "Neither do I."

Brushing auburn hair behind her ear, Jack moved in to kiss her, only to be stopped when she put a finger to his lips. They locked eyes, the question implicit in his, a different one in his best friend's. Around them, the layers began to fall away, the ghosts began to fall to rest, the silence was suddenly something more than a heartbeat.

"Are you sure about this, Jack?" she said.

"Liz, you are the only thing I'm sure of anymore," he told her in all seriousness. 

"I don't even know what tomorrow looks like."

"It doesn't matter," he replied. "We'll deal with it."

He kissed her then, something gentle, something true, a perfect gesture for two lifelong friends who had realized what everyone else had known all along: that they were bound together, no matter what road or reality they faced, and that the unexpected hand of fate had its reasons for the way things were meant to be. As they shared that moment, it created something in the present time which wasn't made of angst or crises, a happening that those that knew them – present and past – would expect of them. Once again, they were in time together. And the first seconds of the feeling passed, the first minute, headlong into the next, that they would face together until the last.


End file.
